Tokyo, Japan - WWF has launched a new business partnership that urges the Japanese government to adopt more renewable energy into the country’s power mix to help increase energy security and reduce the impact of climate change on future generations.

The Business Partnership for Low-Carbon Society urges the nation to rethink its energy future and shift to a greener society where renewable energy plays a central role.

Demands for a greener energy mix have peaked since the devastating earthquake that struck northeastern Japan on March 11 this year, the worst in the country’s history. Measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale, it also triggered a tsunami that washed out costal cities and farmland across the northeast.

The disaster virtually made it impossible for the government to build new reactors as planned, and it instead shifted to the development of a new energy policy that includes more renewable energy technologies and an enhanced focus on environmental protection.

In a show of support for the demands for a cleaner, greener energy mix across the country, IKEA Japan and mont-bell Co., Ltd are endorsing WWF’s new corporate partnership. Their concerns and vision have been highlighted in the recent WWF-backed Communiqué on the Future of Energy in Japan, which outlines the need for all of society to conserve energy and push for the adoption of policies that will make the adoption of renewable energy technologies across Japan a reality.

“The nation’s energy policy also works as a climate policy,” says Yosuke Ikehara, a Climate and Energy Project Leader of WWF Japan. “When developing a future energy vision, we need to place renewables in a central position by taking into account safety and sustainability as well as their potential to reduce the impacts of climate change.”

“It is significant that this idea is also coming from the Japanese businesses sector at this time,” added Mr. Ikehara.

To promote the uptake of renewable energy resources, a feed-in tariff bill is now under discussion at the Japanese Diet. However, there is a regressive proposal in discussion that puts a ceiling on the amount of surcharge per unit of power consumption, which would prevent wider dissemination of renewable energy technologies. WWF Japan is urging legislators to pass the bill in a form that promotes the renewable sources of power.

Wind turbine, part of the Horizon Power Wind Farm near Nine Mile Beach, Esperance, Western Australia. Enormous wind turbines generate a quarter of Esperance's electricity